How many days and weeks until October 1st?

On October 1st 1908 the first Ford Model T was offered for sale at 850 dollars, a price Henry Ford spent the next two decades driving downwards until a new car cost less than many men earned in a year. The famous line about any colour so long as it is black belongs to the later years of the production line; the earliest cars could be had in grey, green and red.

Seven months of subsonic testing ended on October 1st 1969, when the French Concorde prototype passed the speed of sound for the first time and held it for nine minutes at 36,000 feet. It was the aircraft’s forty-fifth flight. The Anglo-French programme had by then cost a great deal more than either government had been led to expect, and went on doing so.

Henry III was born at Winchester on October 1st 1207 and became King of England at nine, inheriting a country his father John had comprehensively mismanaged. He reigned for fifty-six years, one of the longest reigns in English history, and rebuilt Westminster Abbey substantially as it now stands.

Julie Andrews, who would go on to star in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, was twelve when she made her professional debut on a London stage, in a variety bill. She had been born at Walton-on-Thames on October 1st 1935, and the day also produced the actor Richard Harris, later known for playing Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, at Limerick, in 1930.

Born on October 1st: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Julie Andrews and Jimmy Carter — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a October 1st birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — opal for the stone, Libra for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

October birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual October birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Libra constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Libra for a October 1st birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the October birthstone and the marigold — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on October 1st, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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